We had a nice schnitzel and spätzle lunch, which we enjoyed leisurely with ice-cold drinks – lemonade for me, and Austrian beer for my husband. He grew up eating his mom's made-from-scratch schnitzels (slice of meat thinned by pounding with a meat tenderizer, breaded, and fried) and spätzle (egg noodles), so he is always on the lookout for these. And of course, he believes that the best beers come from Bavaria, Austria, and the Czech Republic.
Some of my tour mates signed up for the Eagle’s Nest excursion after lunch. This is a teahouse perched on a mountain summit and is rumoured to have been built as a gift for Adolf Hitler’s 50th birthday. According to other sources, however, this is not true at all ("fake news," as we call it now). It has been running as a mountain restaurant since 1952 and is known for magnificent views of the Berchtesgaden Mountains.
We, however, opted to stay in the Old Town to explore it some more. We figured, we could go back to Austria in a few years and visit the outskirts of Salzburg. In the meantime, we would first peruse the many interesting shops and marketplaces around the town’s lovely squares.
Salzburg is too pretty of a place to bypass on a short visit. Its streets are characterized by elegant buildings interconnected by vaulted passageways, arcades with pergolas, narrow steps, and colourful flower arrangements. There are also a number of private courtyards rich in details such as columns, marble balustrades, moulded cornices, elaborate engravings, and of course, elegant fountains. Walking around the city was such a joy!
We strolled along the Getreidegasse, said to be Salzburg’s most famous shopping lane. Its charm comes from the combination of the high, narrow houses tightly nestled together and the romantic passageways and courtyards behind the old apartments. One thing I noticed is that every shop on the street has wrought iron guild signs hanging above their doors.
This practice dates back centuries ago when shopkeepers use symbolic signage to help illiterate people identify what they offered in the olden days. The tradition continues to be honoured, and nowadays, modern shops and restaurants are required to maintain the look and feel of this old street. Fast food eateries like McDonald’s and clothing shops like Zara have signage done in the old pretzel style. How quaint!
The most popular house on this lane is the No. 9 House, the Hagernauerhaus, which is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s birthplace. His family rented a flat in the house of the wealthy merchant Lorenz Haguernauer. It is now a museum devoted to Mozart and his family and it houses interesting memorabilia, letters, and portraits. Everywhere in Salzburg, any visitor would feel the Mozart fever and I loved it because Mozart happens to be my favourite composer!
At the Alter Markt or the Old Marketplace, we found Café Tomaselli, Austria's oldest café, where Mozart spent every morning of his life in Salzburg. According to local tales, this was where he ate his breakfast and had his coffee. But there's an ironic piece of trivia - Mozart complained about this place so much. On his journal, he wrote daily about how bad the food, the coffee, and the service were. As to why he still hung out there every day anyway, no one knows. We could perhaps attribute it to his eccentricity. Or maybe there was something special about this café that enticed him, despite everything that he hated about it.
We wanted to go there for coffee but it was packed, so we just posed in front of the Mozart statue across the café. It was a good thing I took a photo of it. The random tourist who took ours totally cut off Mozart. Hahaha!
My husband suggested we walk to the The Sacher-Torte Hotel whose Sacher-Torte Café closely-guards the original sacher torte recipe. The sacher torte was named after its creator, Franz Sacher. This confection is traditionally composed of two layers of dense, mildly sweet sponge cake with a layer of apricot jam in the middle. The cake is covered at the top and sides with a dark chocolate icing and traditionally served with unsweetened whipped cream. He said that this is something I have to definitely eat while in Austria (he can’t have it though, because of the apricot). It is said that the true sacher torte can only be found in Salzburg and in Vienna.
On our way there, however, we stopped by a store and had a chat with a local. She told us about another traditional coffee house in the area called Café-Konditorei Fürst whose founder invented the Mozartkugel chocolates (the famous Mozart ball – green pistachio marzipan covered in a layer of nougat and dunked in chocolate coating), which had been imitated by several local confectioners. She said they also make the sacher torte and that personally, she thought theirs is much better than that of the Sacher-Torte Café. It's more flavourful and moist, she said. The original version is on the drier side.
We took her advice and looked for the café. We found it in no time and we decided to sit down for coffee and desserts. My husband found a yummy chocolate cake that he could eat (everything was made from scratch and the pastry chef was able to tell my husband the ingredients of every item on display). Of course, I ordered the sacher torte, but got the variant with raspberry instead of apricot filling, since I love berries. I figured I’d try the apricot one when we go to the Sacher-Torte Hotel in Vienna. The lady was right...the cake was divine. We had the best sweets and coffee ever!
We wanted to get some Mozartkugels, of course, but since we needed some bottled water and some supplies, we thought we’d look for a local grocery store first and then return to get the Mozart candies afterwards before meeting the rest of the group.
Another local guided us to a huge supermarket right outside the Old Town. I was glad we decided to go grocery-shopping first because at the store, we found a variety of Mozart candies and other souvenirs for almost half the price of what was being sold in the touristy Old Town. How lucky could one get? We saved time and money! We made a mental note of this for the next cities we were going to visit – always check the local grocery stores for souvenir items and local products! Chances are, they sell the same stuff as the souvenir stores.
However, we made it a point to get a few boxes of the original Mozartkugels, of course (and certainly, based on our meticulous taste test, there is a difference in quality, texture, and flavour between the original and the more commercial versions; the original is made by hand and uses only the highest quality ingredients). We also got some house specialties to try with my husband's family - Bach Würfel, Fürst Trüffel, Wolf Dietrich Block, Doppler Kon(Ef)fekt, Millennium Trüffel, Paris Lodron Trüffel.
We drove back to Innsbruck to spend the night, then left for Italy the following day.
Photo Credits:
destination360.com, wikiwand.com, David Monniaux (Wikimedia), salzburg.info
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